Talk:Druella/@comment-104.234.246.194-20160628001353/@comment-26419174-20160628225213
@Reptileking: The interesting thing is, that the most orderites are not extremists in the modern meaning of the word. In modern understanding extremists(of the religious kind at least) are relatively few representatives of a particular faith's most hardliner Fire-and-brimstone members. They essentially take some parts of the creed, interpret it in a way that suits their (often political ) goals and stuck with it ignoring every evidence to the contrary. With the order however it is not a minority that holds such a position but an overwhelming majority. There are at least 2 good reasons as to why it is so: 1. The order has an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the claim that their God is both real and agrees with such an interpretation of her creed. 2. Until relatively recently, such a position(monsters are evil, we have to kill the monsters) was perfectly accurate, reasonable and , in fact the only way to survive. The entirety of cultural legacy they have beyond the last 1000 or so years supports this position meaning it is also a tradition as well, which is further supported by propaganda, sanctioned and supported by unquestionably divine authority. With that in mind, the fact that the majority of orderites fails to actually stuck to this position when faced with the truth(and they do fail rather commonly) clearly indicates that they are actually willing and able to adjust and alter their position significantly, something the modern extremists generally don't do. As such, I do agree with BTR : it would be possible to change the order(or at least the significant parts of it) by removing the old leaders. The caveat, however, is that the only way to truly change the orders position necessarily involves removing Chiefly out of the equation as she is shown to be pretty much unable to change her opinion in the face of facts. + there is the fact that she is the most senior god on order's side(faq mentions that there are others) and thus a major source of "reason 1" Now, to the original posts AKA my opinion on Deruella. I will start by saying that I don't like her much. Pretty anticlimactic, but I think the reasons deserve more looking into. First of them comes from my issues with the extremist faction in general, or specifically with the fact that ,in universe their actions consist of pretty much shooting themselves in the foot. Yes, it's the old "they are approaching an extinction event " argument. Now, KC did debunk iit n the FAQ, but those don't exist inside the universe itself, meaning that the extremists actions are no less stupid and self destructive from in universe PoV. Interestingly the latest added FAQ(ask FM one) both acknowledges it and reduces the degree of stupidity(both somewhere in here, no way of giving more accurate link,sorry) Second part comes with the fact that her actions inevitably involve monsterization and incubisation and I am still dubious on those ones. That particular dead horse has, however been beaten beyond abilities of even the most talented necromancer, so let me just say, that no amount of telling(i.e. FAQs) will be able to fully persuade me while 7 out of 8 cases shown actually contradict those FAQ. The fact that there are a few things told which also contradict the FAQs don't help either (Read the part on the extra thick milk and it's effects on women and compare it to what the FAQ says. Keep in mind, that it is from WG II, and thus written by Saphirette, who is supposed to be reliable.) Now the third common argument, namely the assault itself, doesn't really bother me much(aside from things covered above.) The reasons are simple: Lescatie was a primary source of heroes, and contained the majority of the training facilities as well as being the source of a sizable chunk of the order's more standard military. As such It was a perfectly valid military target, and Deruella's actions there are, at worst, comparable to those of the Allies in WW2 when they bombed German industrial cities into rubble. The last group of reasons , or, more accurately, reason is actually meta and it goes thusly: she represents, perfectly, some of most severe issues I have with the setting at large. With the ideas put into it and the execution of those ideas. Some of them would be: the ridiculous overpoveredness of monsters, the complete and utter holplessness and thus pointlessness of the whole conflict, the amount of author favoitism, that goes above and beyond overpoweredness and sucks out any shreds of meaninfull conflict that are left (5 of lesc top heroes conveniently having severe psychological issues that can be easily fixed by monstereisation? All at the same time, no less?),and, ultimately, the complete and utter absence of any meaningful choice. P.S. I apologize for the wall of text. Just felt like writing something like this while the topic is still kind of going. I also apologize for shitty punctuation, it's pretty late where I am right now.